"This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years - how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts."

An admission that the country has been in a recession followed by a weak recovery. The recession started in 2007 and it's taken a long time to recover from the catastrophe of Fall 2008.

The response:

"We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

"This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years - how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts."

An admission that the country has been in a recession followed by a weak recovery. The recession started in 2007 and it's taken a long time to recover from the catastrophe of Fall 2008.

The response:

"We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

"This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years - how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts."

An admission that the country has been in a recession followed by a weak recovery. The recession started in 2007 and it's taken a long time to recover from the catastrophe of Fall 2008.

The response:

"We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

Uh ... when did that happen?

Never.

Christ, the number of people that believe that lie is sad.

Even the Mittster admits that Taxbongo didn't in fact increase our bongo taxes. Of course, the talking point is "but but but he's GONNA!"

"This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years - how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts."

An admission that the country has been in a recession followed by a weak recovery. The recession started in 2007 and it's taken a long time to recover from the catastrophe of Fall 2008.

The response:

"We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

Uh ... when did that happen?

Never.

Christ, the number of people that believe that lie is sad.

We're well into the "keep throwing stuff at the wall men, something has to stick eventually" stage of Romney's campaign, now.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats:We're well into the "keep throwing stuff at the wall men, something has to stick eventually" stage of Romney's campaign, now.

They're supposed to be past that phase. They're supposed to be in the "this is what I can do for you" phase, but they never got anything to stick, so they're still stuck back there. It's becoming increasingly obvious to many that they really don't have any plans of their own, and they're not going to.

"I could explain our tax plan to you, but it would take too long." - Ryan on Sunday

They really keep hoping that everyone forgets when the economic crash that we've trying to claw our way out of for four years happened and that their policies ideas are exactly the same as those in place during the crash, don't they? Well, I'm guessing all hard core Republicans have taken that Kool-Aid with delight, but I'm not so sure about middle of the road voters. Good luck with that.

[Biden says that the middle class has had it tough these past four years]

Romney camp: "OH BOY WE'VE REALLY GOT HIM NOW!"

See, just saying "Obama failed you!" isn't enough. You have to say, "Obama failed you and this is how we will fix it!" And Obama can't be able to come back and say, "but this is what they've said that they want to do, and that's going to do the opposite of fix the problem."

That last part is the tricky one, I know. It's because your policy positions are awful.

"This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years - how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts."

An admission that the country has been in a recession followed by a weak recovery. The recession started in 2007 and it's taken a long time to recover from the catastrophe of Fall 2008.

The response:

"We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

Uh ... when did that happen?

Never.

Christ, the number of people that believe that lie is sad.

They'll just repeat it over and over out of context. It could work on people who aren't really paying attention.

"This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years - how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts."

An admission that the country has been in a recession followed by a weak recovery. The recession started in 2007 and it's taken a long time to recover from the catastrophe of Fall 2008.

The response:

"We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

The GOP insiders have been so trapped inside the bubble where the recession that preceded Obama's election is 100% his fault, and where he gets no credit for being more successful against terrorism than his Republican predecessors, that they cannot comprehend why these lines of attack aren't working.

The only solution they can come up with is to push their failed strategy even harder. And we wonder why 8 years of Dubya were such a disaster.

"So basically here's what this election comes down to. They're betting that between now and November you're going to come down with amnesia. They figure you're going to forget what their agenda did to this country. They think you'll just believe that they've changed. These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class; they drove our economy into a ditch.

And we got in there and put on our boots, and we pushed and we shoved and we were sweating. These guys were standing, watching us, sipping on a Slurpee. And they were pointing at us saying 'how come you're not pushing harder? how come you're not pushing faster?' And then when we finally got the car up--and it's got a few dings and a few dents, it's got some mud on it. We're going to have to do some work on it. They point to everybody else and say:

'Look what these guys did to your car!'

After we got it out of the ditch, then they've got the nerve to ask for the keys back. I don't want to give them the keys back, they don't know how to drive." ~ Barack Obama

As a Virginia resident, at least I'll know the message of the political attack ad I'm fast fowarding through.I really hate politics now. The debate tomorrow is completely meaningless. A political debate is now a scripted conversation between two actors. The only excitement is if someone says something not on the manuscript.Elections now boil down to sound bites and condescending advertisements expressing disdain for the opposing candidate.

Only in the eyes of conservatives is road construction considered "government waste".

Ever heard of the Ambassador Bridge? Good conservatives build their own bridges and then sue to keep anyone else from doing the same thing. And restructure their companies to try to avoid contempt of court charges instead of spending a decade working out congestion problems as ordered as growing demand chokes the local economies in two countries.

No government waste necessary. Just good old fashioned supply and demand. Engineer a monopolistic bottleneck and hold everyone ransom.

"This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years - how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts."

An admission that the country has been in a recession followed by a weak recovery. The recession started in 2007 and it's taken a long time to recover from the catastrophe of Fall 2008.

The response:

"We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

Mentat:If this is the quality of zinger we can expect tomorrow, I may put a bullet in my head before the first 15 minutes.

No no, a Presidential debate zinger is different. It is a string of words utterly devoid of meaning or content or context. It is a carny hypnotist's trigger phrase, nothing more.

The Republican Party has almost entirely invested its last hopes in this fantasy: during one of the debates - first, second, third, whatever - in any old random interchange, about anything at all, their candidate luckily side-arms out a phrase with just the right timing, posture and inflection. Doesn't matter what the phrase is - in fact the more empty and meaningless the better since anything with identifiable content might be vulnerable to rebuttal. Just one memorable word or phrase. If nothing stands out, pick the best you've got and feed it to the right-wing commercial-media and internet noise machine to frantically and melodramatically amplify caricature and market it as the most humbly crushing rhetorical blow in recorded history. Similarly, they pick - at random, really - some word or phrase which may or may not have actually been uttered by their opponent, feed it to the same vast and fetid propaganda mill to be trumped up as the single most pathetic outrageous insulting feckless yet tyrannical utterance in the history of utters.

My conspiracy theory is Biden is throwing the GOP a bone laced with cyanide. GOP runs with Biden's quote, making it front and center of some argument that M.Romney will use in a debate as a zinger, and ultimately proven wrong with facts. At this point, the focus from Ryan and Romney isn't Biden, so he can subversively fark around with those two all he wants. Remember that Biden has been in politics twice as long as Ryan and Romney; it's hard to believe he's a total doofus.

I think the only thing wrong with Biden is that he is honest, although sometimes doesn't say thing like he actually meant them. Maybe the wrong man is president. Romney on the other hand, pretty much screws up EVERYTHING he says and is so smug and seems to have this "I'm entitled" air about him that I just want to biatch slap him.

If Rmoney gets elected it will be a screwing for the middle class, just like it was back in the early 80's with "trickle down" economics. The rich got large tax breaks, the middle class got small tax breaks but they were offset by loss of a lot of deductions, which actually meant tax increases.

Lando Lincoln:TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: We're well into the "keep throwing stuff at the wall men, something has to stick eventually" stage of Romney's campaign, now.

They're supposed to be past that phase. They're supposed to be in the "this is what I can do for you" phase, but they never got anything to stick, so they're still stuck back there. It's becoming increasingly obvious to many that they really don't have any plans of their own, and they're not going to.

"I could explain our tax plan to you, but it would take too long." - Ryan on Sunday

"This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years - how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts."

An admission that the country has been in a recession followed by a weak recovery. The recession started in 2007 and it's taken a long time to recover from the catastrophe of Fall 2008.

The response:

"We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

Uh ... when did that happen?

News flash. The recession ended in June of 2009

0bama gave us the summer of recovery, shovel ready jobs, cash for clunkers and everything he dreamed up when they controlled the house and senate

muck1969:My conspiracy theory is Biden is throwing the GOP a bone laced with cyanide. GOP runs with Biden's quote, making it front and center of some argument that M.Romney will use in a debate as a zinger, and ultimately proven wrong with facts. At this point, the focus from Ryan and Romney isn't Biden, so he can subversively fark around with those two all he wants. Remember that Biden has been in politics twice as long as Ryan and Romney; it's hard to believe he's a total doofus.

Meh. Not everything is a 12 dimensional chess move. It's a long campaign and they have to say a lot of words, eventually some of those come out in a way that's easy to take out of context.

MEDIA: This is Media News at the site of the recent mine collapse. We're awaiting a statement from the supervisor of the rescue operation which has been ongoing for 48 hours now...

RESCUE: Look, this is tough going, but our biggest problem is that the knuckleheads who caused the collapse in the first place keep trying to knock more rock down there. They say it'll help.

CNN: Oh yeah? I wondered what they were doing. Huh.

RESCUE: This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest. How they can justify, how they can justify dumping tons of debris onto the miners that have been buried the last 48 hours - how in Lord's name can they justify cutting off their escape route with this dumping?"

Monkeyfark Ridiculous:MEDIA: This is Media News at the site of the recent mine collapse. We're awaiting a statement from the supervisor of the rescue operation which has been ongoing for 48 hours now...

RESCUE: Look, this is tough going, but our biggest problem is that the knuckleheads who caused the collapse in the first place keep trying to knock more rock down there. They say it'll help.

CNN: Oh yeah? I wondered what they were doing. Huh.

RESCUE: This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest. How they can justify, how they can justify dumping tons of debris onto the miners that have been buried the last 48 hours - how in Lord's name can they justify cutting off their escape route with this dumping?"